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This Is a Managed Economy – Note Smuggled from Chinese Labor Camp in Decorations Pleads for Help

An American woman unwrapping Halloween decorations bought from K-Mart earlier this year found a note which appears to have been written by someone working in a Chinese forced labor camp. It desperately asks the world to pay attention.

Assuming that the note is real, and it sounds like there is every reason to believe that it is, it is a good example of the type of abuses which happen under a managed economy. When the state is the ultimate everything, the individual will always be abused.

When I read this article this morning, I immediately thought back to the praise some of our leaders have recently heaped upon the Ultimate Crony Capitalist State, China, for its “wise” management of its economy.

I imagine both Jeff Imelt, the GE CEO, and Andy Stern, the former head of the SEIU, two men who have had nice things to say about Chinese state-capitalism, consider forced labor abhorrent. Yet, it is abuses such as forced labor which happen when the state is the overseer of everything in an economy. The praise both men have expressed for macro economic management is blind to the reality of the coercion which comes with such a “managed” economy. I’d like to see either one of these 2 fellows look the worker who wrote this note in the eye and tell him that state-capitalism is just.

About Nick Sorrentino

Nick Sorrentino is the co-founder and editor of AgainstCronyCapitalism.org. A political and communications consultant with clients across the political spectrum, his work has been featured at Breitbart, Reason.com, NPR.com, Townhall, The Daily Caller, and many other publications. A graduate of Mary Washington College he lives just outside of Washington DC where he can keep an eye on Leviathan.